Of all the politically salient issues in the United States today, none is of greater moment to Americans than education. Public opinion polls repeatedly confirm that citizens are more concerned about education than they are about any other issue -- including the economy, employment, crime and international affairs. Other data corroborate those polls and attest to the primacy of education.

Within the last 11 years, three U.S. "summits" have confronted educational issues. Months after becoming president in 1989, George Bush convened the nation's 50 governors (including Bill Clinton of Arkansas) to focus on the need to improve the quality of pre-collegiate education for all children. The states' chief executives reached a consensus on national objectives and the need for performance standards. In 1994, the U.S. Congress shaped that declaration of purposes into the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. The most recent gathering, including U.S. corporate leaders as well as the governors, reaffirmed a commitment to public education, assessed progress toward the achievement of the national goals, and recommended course corrections as they deemed necessary.

The heightened national interest in education has spurred candidates for national, state and local offices -- as well as the major political parties themselves -- to present their ideas, to pledge to seek continued improvement in education, and to commit themselves to programs that will meet the need, across the United States, not only for more teachers, but for those who are fully qualified. Moreover, politicians have vowed to devote special attention to narrowing the achievement gap between the most and the least advantaged students.

This continuing concern about education in the United States is rooted in the fundamental passion of Americans for learning. It is, indeed, the latest chapter in a national saga that goes back to colonial times, but which took on great significance slightly more than a half-century ago, when the Supreme Court of the United States issued its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision ending segregation in public education. Since that ruling, the Court (and lower courts throughout the judicial system) has been involved in an ever-increasing number of cases regarding education. It is a measure of the intensity of the issue.

The present era -- at the dawn of a new century -- is marked by a national fascination with seeking, and experimenting with, alternatives to traditional forms of schooling. The "deschooling," home schooling, and alternative schooling movements all have their advocates. There are proponents of private and charter schools, and of "choice" or voucher plans. Interest groups vie with one another as they attempt to persuade decision-making bodies to give consideration to the special needs of students such as those with disabilities, students for whom English is a foreign language, students who are gifted and talented, or students who are mired in poverty.

While it is true that this is a time of ferment in education, it is important to remember that neither public interest in education nor the desire to extend and improve schooling are new phenomena in the United States. Even a cursory glance at history bears out the fact that education not only has been a central concern of Americans even before the founding of the republic; it also has been a continuing source of controversy. What is more, the basic philosophical questions about which Americans have contended in the past bear a striking resemblance to those about which Americans contend today.

Evidence of Americans' continuing concern for education is not hard to find. It can be found in the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787 passed by Congress under the Articles of Confederation. The first of these made possible the sale of public lands, provided that the sixteenth lot in each township was set aside for educational purposes. The second created a plan of administration and declared that "...religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

These ordinances laid the basis for future federal educational support, which came in a succession of U.S. congressional enactments still in force today. An early, significant piece of legislation was the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, signed enthusiastically by President Abraham Lincoln. It enabled the states to address the need for practical education by establishing colleges for agriculture, the mechanical arts and military sciences. A host of subsequent legislation has extended the benefits of education to those who because of poverty, race, gender, disabilities or other conditions were excluded. Notable among those enactments have been the G.I. Bill of Rights for military veterans, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Head Start Act, the Bilingual Education Act and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (the name was changed in 1990 to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act).

From the onset of the republic, presidents of the United States also have voiced their commitment to education by taking advantage of what Theodore Roosevelt aptly called their "bully pulpit." Education was a priority for the earliest chief executives. George Washington specifically addressed the subject in both his first inaugural address and his final message to Congress. He urged the establishment of a national university, a dream he was not able to realize. Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, was an ardent advocate of education even before he took the highest office in the land. He proposed a law to establish public schools in his native state of Virginia, maintaining that "an amendment of our constitution must come here in aid of the public education. The influence of government must be shared among all the people." And, more recently, Lyndon Johnson -- who, long before his White House years years in the 1960s, taught school in an impoverished rural Texas sector -- staunchly advocated attention to educational matters.

It would be wrong, however, to presume that all of the initiatives on behalf of education have emanated from the federal government. Education in the United States is primarily a state function, which is delegated in large part to the more than 15,000 local school districts. Within them, school board members, superintendents, professional organizations of educators, citizens committees and the students themselves can claim credit for extending and improving educational opportunities.

The fact that Americans have long shared a belief in the importance of education, and have exhibited a determination to extend and improve educational opportunities, does not mean that they are, or have been, of one mind on the subject. In the course of the nation's history they have engaged in debate, often heated, over such fundamental questions as these:

• What constitutes a "good" education?
• What should be the content of schooling?
• How should education be distributed?
• How should educational authority be distributed?
• Who should bear the burden of the costs of education?
• How much of our resources should be devoted to education?
• Who is accountable for how much and how well students learn?
• How should the results of schooling be assessed and what should be the consequences of such assessment?

Those questions and their corollaries have yet to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, and it is doubtful they ever will be. R. Freeman Butts, noted Columbia University scholar and author of numerous books on education, offers a credible explanation for the durability of this often fierce national debate. Tensions and disagreements, he suggests, arise from the interplay of three persistent themes in American life:

1. The cohesive value claims of the democratic political community and the long-range constitutional order. Those cohesive values include liberty, equality, popular consent and personal obligation for the public good. More traditional or conservative cohesive values also embrace individualism, free enterprise and allegiance to the "American way of life."

2. The differentiating value claims of pluralism that give identity to diverse groups or segments in American society. These claims can be made on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, language, economic circumstances, previous deprivation of rights or other distinguishing factors.

3. The worldwide drive toward modernization and globalization that continues to effect deep changes in societies all over the world. Among these changes are industrialization, urbanization, centralization of power of the national state, and secularization of knowledge.

Those who argue that education should promote cohesive value claims contend that schooling should serve a basic civic role. The primary goal of elementary and secondary education should be to produce informed, effective, and responsible citizens. Those who believe that education should serve differentiating claims insist that their values be honored and that their particular needs be met. Not infrequently, they seek to break away from the cohesive values to form their own schools as the basis for building their own kind of community. Those who are most concerned about modernization and globalization emphasize the need to prepare students for the interdependent, technological, urbanized world in which they will live their lives. They often urge that greater attention be given to "world citizenship" or to the ties that bind one to all of humanity rather than those they deem more parochial.

The "pulling and hauling" of these contending claims of a democratic polity, of segmental pluralisms, and of relentless technological modernity and globalization is readily apparent today. It can be seen and heard on every hand ranging from deliberations by school boards and debates in our legislatures to private conversations among parents and concerned citizens. Ultimately, contention, debate and deliberation form the essence of a democratic society.

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Margaret Stimmann Branson is associate director of the Center for Civic Education, in Calabasas, California, a renowned scholar and consultant on civic education and the author of numerous textbooks and professional articles. She was an editorial director and a principal researcher and writer of the National Standards for Civics and Government, and is serving on the International Education Association National Expert Panel on U.S. Civic Education, and the International Framework for Education for Democracy Development Committee.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.